22 August 2005

Rebecca and I have made our escape from Cloud City, also known as Chez Lando. I am pleased to report that I still have both hands, and that Rebecca has not been taken captive by any bounty hunters. The assault on Jaba’s palace begins next week, although no one we know has been entombed in carbonite.

I am writing this from the Kigali Bureau of the Catholic News Service, which also happens to be a room in a two-story, red brick townhouse in Kigali’s Kimihurura district. I was calling our neighborhood the Kimi-Uhura district, thinking it was named after the Starship Enterprise’s communications officer. I guess not everyone lives in the bizarre mix of science fiction and real life that I choose to inhabit.

We moved into the house last Thursday. I’d give you an address, but I don’t think we have one. Like most streets in Kigali, ours has no name. I simply tell taxi drivers I live in Kimihurura district, behind the Sauna. That’s how most things are done here. People, businesses, even the government, have post boxes, and their street addresses are based on landmarks. For instance, the CRS office, where Bec goes every day, is behind the KBC. That’s it. Everyone in Kigali will be able to tell you where it is. Street names and numbers would make things far more efficient, especially with the pace of construction here. But it would probably end up like Phnom Penh, where there were street names and numbers that the foreigners used, but the moto drivers went via landmarks. A foreigner gesturing wildly or simply screaming agitated instructions on the back of a motorcycle, at the mercy of a smiling, uncomprehending driver up front was a common sight in Cambodia.

So, let me take you on a tour of our house. As I said, it is a red brick, two-story townhouse, and the second in a line of four along an unnamed dirt road. It has three bedrooms, all upstairs. We turned one of the bedrooms into the Kigali Bureau, which makes me the Chief. But I digress. There are two bathrooms upstairs, one downstairs that we use mostly as a storage closet for Claude, the guy who comes to clean the house and do the laundry twice a week.

The house came nearly fully furnished with beds, a dining table and chairs, two armoires, stove, refrigerator, sofas for the sitting room, table in the kitchen and a table and chairs for the balcony off the master bedroom. They also gave us a generator, which is a necessity because the power reliably conks out a couple of times per day. The landlords provided a TV and VCR, although we only have DVDs. If anyone knows what cables I need to get to play DVDs from my Mac or Bec’s Sony Vaio onto the TV, please post them to the blog or e-mail me directly. I do like to get those e-mails. evweinberger@yahoo.com, in case you’re wondering.

What we didn’t have, CRS provided for the most part. They took us shopping for some kitchen and cleaning supplies, all on CRS’s dime. We also got a desk, bookcase and chairs for the office out of storage. The storage place was actually where CRS stores uncountable stacks of grain and cooking oil provided by Uncle Sam. One of the ways the food is used is that it is sold at bargain prices to individuals and little shops, who then turn and sell the food. It’s called monetization. When there is a dire food shortage, or people don’t have the money to buy food, then it is simply given out. But the monetization program allows for business and job development, as well as economic growth. It’s an interesting idea. The Rwandan government no longer wants to receive food aid – instead it wants money for development programs – so we’ll see what happens with the monetization program.

Now back to the house. One of the other amenities our house came with was a guard. His name is Jean, and we have no idea where he sleeps, when he eats or anything else like that. It seems like his job is simply to open and close the gate to our driveway, turn on the generator when the power goes out, sweep up when the wind blows, squeegee the porch when it rains and make sure the place doesn’t get robbed. His French isn’t wonderful, and he seems to communicate better with Bec, but we’re starting to reach an accord.

Having Jean around is reassuring, and I realize that it provides a job to someone who may not have the highest level of education in the country. But since when do I need a guard? Rich people, important people have guards. Who are we? Bec says to think of him like a houseboy. Yeah, that helps a lot. The poor guy is outside all the time, although a small shack is on the way.

Jean is another example of my complicated relationship with Kigali. There are times that I enjoy it here, and it’s a great adventure. There are other times when Kigali and I mix like the bug I encountered last week mixed with my digestive tract. I’m still not totally sure all of my internal organs are where they should be.

There are things I genuinely like about Kigali: I like that just about all of the mini-buses have names. Some of them make sense, like the Jet Li taxi. It conveys a sense of toughness, speed and direction. Others have slogans, like In God’s Hands. I plan on avoiding that one. Then there is the Shania Twain mini-bus. It conveys a love of easy-listening Canadian country-pop music. What that has to do with public transport, I can’t say.

I love that there are so many stories just waiting to be written. I just need to focus on one or two rather than working on the nine or ten at a time I’ve been trying to do. I also love that there are few, if any, Western reporters here. That makes life somewhat easier.

The people I’ve met have for the most part been lovely. They deeply care about their country, and they want to make sure that I learn to love it the way they do. I’ll reserve judgment on that. One other thing I really like is that Rwandans and foreigners mix. We eat in the same restaurants, shop at the same stores – at least the rich Rwandans – and go to the same places. It wasn’t like that in Cambodia.

Then there are days that I just want to wake up and be back in New York. The begging kids and the street hawkers have overwhelmed me, and the power is still out from the night before. A year’s press pass costs $1,000. (I’m going to buy the three-month pass, at still an extortionary $300, and hope that my contacts will let me in places after December without the pass.) We don’t know that many people here yet, and there are only so many times we can eat Rwandan pizza or brochettes without wanting to swear off food for a little while. Fortunately, we’ve started cooking again.

And then there is the language, my tortured relationship with Rwandan French. My first discovery was that my suspicion was correct: I only won the French prize in my senior year of high school because I was less obnoxious than Michael Emmanuel. Sorry, Dad, I’ve been saying this for years.

My second discovery was that the classical French I studied in high school and college has no bearing here. There are really no rules to French in Kigali, so the formal structures I know are no match for the anarchy. People mumble, they speak almost inaudibly; they plunge into sentences, almost daring grammar to stop them. Rebecca points out that this is not a francophone country; it’s a Kinyarwandaphone country. But I don’t speak Kinyarwanda, and am trying my best to meet the Rwandans on their terms. And oh yeah, that English as a third national language bit just isn’t true. Not many Rwandans speak English, so I just assume forget the whole English language with them.

So my transition goes in fits and starts. Some days the shifts from the depths of despair to sheer joy are almost frighteningly fast. But I may have my first story done this week. I’m off to a rural AIDS project with Bec and CRS tomorrow. And I’m starting to make some good contacts. Once that first story is out, and that first paycheck is in, I’ll feel much better.

Sorry this was so long. It’s been a while. If you want to see some photos, check out Rebecca’s flickr Web site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rstich.